Burma, America, The World, Art, Literature, Political Economy through the eyes of a Permanent Exile.
"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the oppressed. Sometimes we must interfere. . . There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention . . . writers and poets, prisoners in so many lands governed by the left and by the right." Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Speech, 1986, Oslo.
This entire site copyright Kyi May Kaung unless indicated otherwise.

Have no fear, one day they will throw their own attack dog to the dogs - A few years ago there was the strong rumor that they had gotten rid of the "founder of the Swan Arh Shin" "Possessors of Strength" which the international media called Hitlerite brown shirts, because he came to know too much.

People and press, where is your collective memory? - This was barely 5 years ago -

If you think things will change just by chanting "change, change, change" you must be living in a folk tale like Monkey -

Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma: A Strange Collection of Clear Victories by Kyi May Kaung - first draft written in Nov. 2012 - an edited version was published in International Gallerie -

During his historic six-hour visit to Rangoon, Burma, newly re-elected U.S. President Barack Obama mispronounced Aung San Suu Kyi’s name twice, calling her “Aung Yann Suu Kyi” – one almost saw Suu Kyi hiding her wince.Yann means “reckless.” Her real name is:Aung San – from her famous father – the George Washington of Burma.Aung = victory or victoriousSan= strange, glorious or unique, rare or scarce.Suu—her own given name, based on the day of the week on which she was born, and the name of Aung San’s mother, whose father was hanged by the British during the Saya San uprising of 1920.Kyi – based on her mother’s name.As Jack Healey, the former director of Amnesty International said, “We should learn how to pronounce her name correctly.”Be that as it may, on Nov 13, 2010, a week after the rigged election, the junta released her from her third bout of house arrest, which had started from a roadside ambush – and is now known as the Depayin Massacre.Daw Suu was truly between a rock and a hard place. She cannot be blamed for having sent out feelers that she could help get sanctions lifted in exchange for being treated better by the junta, now hiding behind its front man, the so-called “moderate” PM turned president.

Thein Sein went to see her. When Obama called her by phone this time last year, she had only to say “I trust him. I think I can work with him,” for him to send Secretary of State Mrs. Hilary Clinton. (See my poem in Foreign Policy in Focus, In the Garden by the Lake.) This unleashed an unreasonable euphoria which has only now started to wear a bit thin as BBC 4 uncovers mass graves in Western Burma, where a genocide against the Muslim Rohingya community has been going on since June, even as Suu Kyi traveled internationally and gave impeccable speeches. In the northeast of Burma, the junta, now in civilian dress, broke a 17 year ceasefire.What are the Lady’s prospects?One should note, she did not win a majority in the April 1 “April Fools’ Day” by-elections -- she won the majority of the few seats she and her party were allowed to contest. Nevertheless, she campaigned all over the country and won – once again demonstrating her popularity.But it is not about popularity, is it? It is about what the junta allows to happen in Burma.What seems to have happened is due to a coincidence of wants and needs by major actors:Suu Kyi’s situation was a no-win one.The junta itself was said to have been scared of what happened in the Middle East, and wanted an exit and an out.The USA and Europe are in the throes of a major recession – the United States itself hugely indebted to China, which is holding the bulk of its national debt or treasury bills. The foreign media and the Burmese exile media are compromised as they have apparently traded access for “doing PR for the junta.”But the Lady is losing patience again – she said “Nothing will happen if the constitution is not changed.” She also said two days ago -- “The military is already the most powerful entity in the country. We in the parliament (hluttaw) should not make decisions that increase its power.”Her prospects over-all are not good. One can argue that they never were and I used to think she has a martyr complex.She can surely win in 2015. But then, what?Every day on Burmese language news from VOA and RFA, we see tearful farmers whose land has been taken by the thousands of acres by the junta cronies. We see miners in equal desperation. We see workers, each one a Fantine out of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, who sold her hair, her teeth and her body to stay alive.Maybe the junta will let Suu win, and then let her “handle” these deep-seated structural and systemic (to do with the system) changes.Then everyone will hate her. Already there’s a growing chorus of those who think she did not speak up forcibly enough about the plight of the Rohingya.Like all politicians, she will, when she comes to power, have to pay off supporters. Then she can easily be accused of corruption as Benazir Bhutto was.I don’t wish to sound flippant or disrespectful – she is one of my greatest heroes.But some days I think she should leave and carve out a life for herself as an international figure who is deeply respected. *

"Fakebook in Burma" is a misleading title - people in Burma use fake names out of fear of the junta for revealing the truth - Junta-aligned people use it to spy on and infiltrate democracy networks - Some people use it just for innocent and naive or commercial reasons.

"Meizalli ate his own food because he was Indian. It made him stronger. He told us he rolled out chapattis and cooked them on a griddle every night after his work supervising day laborers on building sites."

For a political thriller set in DC's Lafayette Square Park, where I did a reading last Sat. read David Baldacci's Hell's Corner - I "met" him briefly when he gave a keynote speech at The Northern Virginia Review, which published 3 of my short stories and gave me a Best in Show prize for my story Black Rice and my painting Mars Ranger - but not the year that Baldacci came -

Thursday, June 27, 2013

was just thinking to repost Ko Ko Thett's and my joint poem - Dendrobium Thein Sein - and look where I found it - in the most unlikely place - and with the original illustration we found too - Made my day!

I thought Ma Hninzi was just wonderful even though
the age of a grown-up.She was like the two
comedians, U Pallata (paratha flat bread) and U Nanpya (naan flat
bread).

Paratha was
a golden, crusted luxury bread held together by ghee or clarified butter, spread between parchment-thin layers of
dough before baking.Naan was a butter-less bread baked on the
inside walls of a mud-earth-molded oven.But to compensate or overcompensate for the lack of butter, naan had big airy holes like blisters
four inches in diameter.

Both were delicious.

I was very fond of them, but they were
luxuries.We weren’t an Indian family,
though I was once asked when I was on the run if I was a Mus or Muslim (maybe due to my White-Moghul facial features).I had run into a house in Rangoon near the Sulé
Pagoda, where a group of Muslims were holding a funeral wake.

We did not know how to make these breads at
home.General Ne Win always boasted how
Socialist he was, he ate simple food like naan
and pèbyoke (boiled beans)[i] every
morning, but apparently in his exaggerated Burmese-ness, he forgot naan is an Indian food.

Ko Ko said this was all bullshit.He’d heard from his classmates that after dinner,
the First Family led by the Westernized Kitty, all ate chocolate and Western-style
desserts.

Maybe Ne Win forgot or didn’t know how much we had
gained from India to our west in terms of art and culture, even our Theravada
Buddhism[ii].

*

At fifteen, I knew more than Ne Win because I had
read a book called What the BuddhaTaught, by the Buddhist writer from
Ceylon, Walpola Rahula, in its Burmese translation.

Copyright - Kyi May Kaung (K.M.Kaung)

[i] Also
Indian.In the USA, I found out the
small, round beans are called vattana
beans.

[ii] The old
school or original Buddhism of the Elders or Theras.Only Burma, Thailand
and Sri Lanka practice this form of Buddhism.

A week ago I bought a big bunch from an Asian grocery - I don't know how much a small bunch is now in kyat - but this was maybe $1.50? and about the equivalent ten Burmese bunches. :)

I cooked it three ways and put the stems in a glass that came with my Mother's Day Roses - now after a few days roots and little sprouts are out -

I was inspired by my Karen friend who made a fake bog with pool liner to plant it in Pennsylvania, in the summer of course.

Now I put some soil in a glass jug that I can't use anymore as the rim is chipped - and I will make a bog in a plastic basin from the time when I had a terrible medical emergency 20 years ago and was bleeding in my gut.

I read about a woman whose son built her a house, where she continues her own 19th century life style, keeping chickens and making her own candles!

I tried making my own mango pickle but it does/did not work - The only green mangoes I found - and I only see them if I am lucky every year or 2 or 3 years in the Southern State, are either too old ( a se shet thwar pyee) or the wrong type - They have big Gs soft-penned on the skin -

anyway, it did not work, the skin is too thick and like leather - so now I am going to try green "ripe" mangoes.

The first trial this summer, the Residency co-director threw them out, as the mangoes went bad as I could not put them in the sun, as it rained three days in a row.

Imagine, in Burma my grandmother made 300 at a time -

now I can't even make 3. Of course she had 3 people at least helping her, and "made it with her mouth and money." This grandmother had plenty of money, but not much honey.

About the woman with chickens - she planted water lilies in an old chamber pot.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Current trend - shoot the messenger (Time Magazine) will do no good, as it deflects attention from the real situation and wastes energy that would be better deployed condemning and exposing the racist actions -

Dr. Maung Zarni always says Burmese have an inherent racist streak, and I found it very disturbing to hear some of my close friends and colleagues come up with the junta's line "They came in from Bangladesh and they breed too much."

What about Ne Win's policies 1962-1988 of no birth control so there would be a lot of Burmans to counter the Chinese population -

a lot of women in Burma of all ethnicities have died due to back alley abortions.

My friends and I are looking at the issues closely, but I don't have permission to say more, and so will not.

For the moment as thinking people all born with a brain you should all use your head and not swallow the junta bait of a visa to Burma and their propaganda hook line and sinker -

for you all know what happens to gullible and panicky fish - they get netted and processed into smelly ngapi and ngan pya ye --

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

"Kedourie was critical of Marxist interpretations of history and of
nationalism, which he described as 'anti-individualist, despotic,
racist, and violent'. He claimed they had turned the Middle East into 'a
wilderness of tigers'."

Kyi May KaungHi
Joseph - I have not read where Kedourie suggested alternatives, but by
the fact that he left the Middle East entirely, and lived and worked in
UK (he went to LSE after Oxford did not give him a Ph.D. - see wiki
above) I would say he liked liberal democracy and a secular system - My
favorite professor for instance (I don't want to mention him by name)
has no religion as far as I know, but remains the most ethical person I
know - and I have known him abt 50 years now - My own parents were
secular and so am I - maybe you will find the answer in Irshad's Head
to Head intv above with Al Jazeera - That said, I am happy with all your
responses to the Kedourie quote - which means I chose my friends wisely
on FB - I would not wish to waste my time talking to bigots.

K.M. Kaung's novella Black Rice is about an extremely dark-skinned man who is adopted by a pale family in Burma. His tormented coming of age coincides with the outbreak of multicolored insurgencies in Burma a year before independence from the British in 1948.

Follow him from the jungle where he goes to escape an unhappy family situation to a surprise event and ending in the gorgeous, lyrical, visual prose of poet and political scientist K.M.Kaung --

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Intro: The Kama Sutra has a section on torture at the end - Shah Jahan, of course, built the Taj Mahal, but was imprisoned and tortured there by his son and successor Aurangzeb - The other references such as "airplane" - "walking on a seashore", "iron roads peeling" and "wet submarine" are based on actual torture methods and positions based on survivor accounts. I wrote this poem in 1994.

Airplane -

Twenty forms of torturestarting from the Kama Sutrathe body is lashed by the hairtill all the bones breakwithoutbreaking the skin -the Indic monarchswere nothingif notcruel.

In a jatakathe sontortured his fathercut the soles of his feetpacking them in salt.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Quote from Activist Terry Evans - on Aung Zaw's 10th article on Sr Gen Than Shwe and his legacy - see Irrawaddy -

Terry Evans Friday, May 10, 2013 - 9:43 am

"Both history and economic theory prove conclusively that centrally-planned economies lower the standard of living for everyone except government elites. Historically, centralized economic planning goes hand in hand with hardship and bloodshed – Than Shwe’s legacy will be to see him and his family reviled."

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Monk who opposes 969 says its nonsense for one religion to oppose another -

"We still have four major religions all over the world. It’s nonsense in
this globalized world to encourage people to discriminate against one
religion in favor of another. That idea also diverts from our
democratization process. It will prevent us (from) catching up with the
rest of the world . . .

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

It's going from the frying pan to the fire, as regards Burmese military government and their invented "Muslim issue."

First the fundamentalist monk is allowed to "draft a law" that says
Buddhist women must seek permission to marry Muslims, and if they don't
they can be arrested and their property taken - about the only voice
speaking up here is Zin Mar Aung -

and now (see below) 2 Muslim women arrested and sentenced to 2 years each for "sparking violence"

Friday, June 14, 2013

Most Helpful Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely a Must-Read! June 13, 2013 By Zorro Format:Paperback
It is a very touching and moving story set in Burma's civil war. A rare
fiction book that is quite interestingly mixed with genuine facts about
Burma's longest internal conflicts.

The best part is the summary execution of Burmese soldiers in the jungle and ......

Have no doubt everyone will read it all in one sitting. I wish the story was much longer. I can't wait to read her next book!

Marie Lall has been characterized by a committed Burma Watcher as "the most terrible person (and sycophant) I ever met" and the linguists, unlike Noam Chomsky - are largely in their own world.

This is the major problem with Burma studies today - Josef Silverstein in 2002 said "Not another study that counts the number of stitches per square inch in a piece of quilting" - He said this at an AAS seminar in DC to honor his lifetime achievement in Burma Studies.

I do respect Justin and Magnus - but conclusion has to be "not worth reading this issue of Journal of Burma Studies" unless I am looking for references for fiction about head hunters.

The Table of Contents for The Journal of Burma Studies Volume 17 Number 1(June 2013) is below. The Journal is now available online throughuniversity libraries that subscribe to Project MUSE (most North Americanuniversities do). NUS Press publishes this Journal on behalf of the Centerfor Burma Studies at Northern Illinois University.

Eunice Low

EDITORNUS PressNational University of Singapore

Articles

Special Section on the Wa Introduction to Wa Studies Magnus Fiskesjö

A Themed Selection of Wa Proverbs and Sayings Justin Watkins

Phonological Outline of the Vo Dialect Atsushi Yamada

Clustered Communities and Transportation Routes: The Wa LandsNeighboring the Lahu and the Dai on the Frontier Jianxiong Ma

To Be at One with Drums: Social Order and Headhunting among theWa of China Bernard Formoso

The Wa Authority and Good Governance, 1989-2007 Ronald D. Renard

Myanmar: The 2011 Elections and Political ParticipationMarie Lall and Hla Hla Win

Scholarly CuriositiesAn Ethnographic Illustration of Wa People in British Burma during theEarly 20th Century: Notes on a Shan Album from the NIU Burma Collection,with Reference to Similar Illustrations from Other SourcesCatherine Raymond

Min Ko Naing's paintings? not sure -

Myo Nyuntmyo
nyunt: when will you be in Burma. I just realised that, story
telling, is the art of imagination and some of the "reality" a
person sees-observes-- hear using the sense of the moment. As
time passes one fathoms into ones memory-- very murky is the
conscious, but one tries tomake it clear for ones thought (but
cannot PWL-- devels, nuts. ghosts maybe our imaginations running
wild-- grotesque). Now I realised why we are trapped as a
people, a culture SMILE our history does not exist. But in the
novels, storys, poems or the narratives , discourses others
have sculpted, scripted , written. AAh poetry feelings, love/hate
comes to mind. Just the ramblings of a old Burmese ( people
think I am mad when I just utter Myanmar--). Best

Kyi May KaungFor
me, all my fears "come out" in my nightmares when happen in early
morning during REM (rapid Eye Movement) sleep - They involve houses
falling down, me trying to warn people whose eyes are closed, people
refusing to be saved walking backwards into the waves - etc.

Kyi May KaungI
don't know why people ask me when I will be in Burma - I have no need
to go - like many writers I "carry Burma" etc with me - I was just
interviewed 2 days ago abt FDI in Burma and World Eco. Forum, so clearly
I don't need to go to see what's happening either.

Thursday, June 06, 2013

Saw
the movie Rain Man again - maybe for third time - This is nothing
unusual for me - as I have to study screenwriting etc on my own - and so
much is "free". --I saw the play about AIDS - Angels in America 9 times
while sitting and standing in the aisles when I worked at Annenberg
Center in Philadelphia as a house manager & usher immediately after I
got my Ph.D. So many TV scripts are on line, like There Will Be Blood.

Anyway, Rain Man is so excellent - Alan Patton, author of Cry the
Beloved Country about South Africa wrote in his forward to the nth
edition that "It can never be written again, as it can't be felt again".

Rain Man is the same way - Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise were at
exactly the right ages (maybe there should be a sequel now) - and the
casting is so good they even look the same - same noses and chins, and
the acting of course is superb.

That is they don't "act" a la
the Burmese movies in a pretentious, pose-striking artificial manner,
with extremely stilted dialog.

Instead, Cruise's hyper
testosteroned bouncy gait, and anger, and Hoffman's passive head held to
the side, his "I don't know"s and "Ah Oh's and his reliance on routine -
"The maple syrup needs to be on the table" are so real, you forget this
a movie with a director, a scriptwriter and actors etc.

That is how it should be.

If you haven't seen it, see it.

Note: I don't believe only new movies and books should be reviewed - There is so much to learn from the old classics.

Dear Kyi May, Please publish this. It is brilliant. let me know when you do! I remember probably a year ago we spoke of vultures picking out Burma's soft and hard bits anything that could be carried off as carrion leaving the shell.

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

"IN A 1978 LETTER to the novelist Cynthia Buchanan, William Gaddis — The Recognitions and J R behind him — discusses the difficulty, in late middle age, of staying angry enough to write well: -- "

From LA Review of Books -

I feel much better now - everyone from my child to ex-in laws always say I am "too angry" but here it is - only my Buddhist friend from Chicago, herself with a new kidney, said, -- like Vijrapani, the blue-skinned god who is the bodyguard of Gautama Buddha and said to be based on the Greek Hercules - "Anger can be a good thing."

Kyi May KaungPosted
below - scroll down further - Photos and cooking by Cho Kha - thank
you. Yes, hungry ghosts - now is about the time of the Chinese ghost
festival - thasaygyi shi khoe - see all the rites and superstitions in
Lisa See's excellent Peony in Love - I never knew you would be a
wandering hungry ghost if you got no closure and this was due to your
ancestral tablet being undotted (i.e. without a full stop! -- lovely
concept) - and therefore destined to wander hungry forever - All those
foodies who check this page should read See's book. It is Amazing how
she combines Chinese cultural history with the voice of the poor ghost -

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